Chapter Five
We are slow to get on the road. Titus pauses often as we pack up camp. He lifts an amulet from beneath his tunic. Turns it
in the sunlight. Studies it. It’s a tiny sculpture. Soft pink with grayish streaks. Marble, maybe? It dangles from a silk
cord around his neck. He catches me staring and shoves it under his tunic so fast you’d think I was about to steal it.
I turn away casually, as if I didn’t notice.
Steel-toed boots. A Thordin stallion. A marble sculpture on a silk cord. There is so much more to Titus than appears at first
glance.
“Where are we going?” I ask as we mount our horses. Apple and Blackwind have sniffed each other thoroughly and come to an
uneasy truce.
“You promised you wouldn’t ask questions.”
“That’s hardly a personal question. When we get there, I’ll know anyway. So you might as well tell me now.”
He nudges Blackwind ahead so that I’m staring at his back.
“Maybe I could help!” I call as I direct Apple to follow.
“If you said, ‘Bria, it so happens we’re going to Ysavo,’ I could then say, ‘Sorry, Titus, but we’re going the wrong way.
’ And wouldn’t you like to know if we were going the wrong way?
I mean, I’ve never traveled this stretch of road before, but I am a Grimsvolder, and I do know something of Grimsvold geography. So, it would be smart of you to—”
“We’re going to the Fedor mine.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
I kick Apple forward to catch up. “Why? That mine has been closed for years.”
“Now that is a personal question.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
Fedor is an abandoned village, high up in the mountains—almost to the Spires.
I say, “The last of the miners fled years ago, after digging out from a week-long blizzard. My grandfather died there in a
cave-in. The baron deeded land to us and a few other families afterward, as recompense. Said he wanted to keep this border
populated. That’s one reason why our inn has been so successful. No rents to the lord.”
He says nothing.
“They say the mine is haunted,” I add. “That mistwraiths stay there during winter, when it’s too cold for fog.”
“Is there anything that will make you stop talking?”
“Oh yes,” I say cheerfully. “I rarely find it necessary to continue talking when my companion is forthcoming.”
But no amount of coaxing can get him to say more, except to inform me that we must travel fast today and get as high as we
can—above the fog line if possible.
His brush with the mistwraiths must have been a close call indeed, so I put my head down against the wind and try to keep my weight forward, where I’m easiest for Apple to carry.
My thoughts can’t help but drift back to the wraiths, and the ravenous one who came for me .
. . how I almost wanted him to. How did the wraiths appear to Titus? What did he see?
That, of course, would be a very personal question.
As the setting sun soaks the snow-capped peaks in pink and coral, Titus pulls his bow from his shoulder and readies an arrow.
Moments later, we flush a covey of grouse. They are half speckled, half white with encroaching winter, and they flutter and
flap in panic. I hardly know what happens—there is only the twang of a bowstring, and then the grouse are gone, except one
that lies bleeding in forest trash, a wing twitching.
“You can pluck and dress it one-handed, right?” Titus says with an arched brow.
I did say I would earn my keep. “Of course.”
We make camp beside a small stream. I prepare the grouse clumsily and spit it over the fire.
“Will there be wraiths tonight, do you think?” I ask as the bird cooks.
“Too cold for fog,” he says, as he sweeps an oil-soaked cloth up and down his bow. “We’ve seen the last of them.”
“Until the next warming spell.”
“You’ll be long gone by then.”
“So there’s a village or trading post along the way?”
“Gods, I hope so,” he growls. His hand on the bow stills. “Surely there is a husband looking for you? A betrothed? Someone
we can send word to?”
“No.”
“You’re old enough.”
“I’m only seventeen.”
“But you Grimsvolders marry young.”
I shrug. “Not me.”
He resumes oiling. “You’d have little trouble finding a husband if you talked less.”
His gaze has softened a smidge. Maybe he’s teasing me. “Most men like to talk, actually. Especially after a tankard or two
of mead. And I was rich. Not by the standards of a man who owns a Thordin stallion, of course, but my family did well enough.
More importantly, I was pretty. Everyone said so.” I lean back, my hand behind my neck, and look up at the stars. The Bellows
is especially clear tonight. “It’s a myth that pretty girls marry first, you know. I thought I had all the time in the world
to choose.”
He sets his bow aside in favor of a dagger and a whetstone. “You’re arrogant.”
“I probably was,” I admit. “But I’m also practical. And frank in the way only boys and men get away with. But it didn’t work,
did it? Enslavers caught me. Killed my entire family. And weeks in a cage will rob any girl of her beauty.”
He hmphs, which I take for assent.
“What about you?” I ask. “Do you have a wife anxiously awaiting your taci-return?”
“That’s—”
“Personal. Sorry.”
He exhales deeply. “I’m betrothed.”
I’m not sure why this surprises me, but it does. “Do you let her talk?”
Swick, swick goes the whetstone. “Is that bird done yet?”
It’s not, and I heat up some tea while we wait. As we sip, he says in a mild voice, “If you bring her up again, I will tie you to a tree and leave you behind.”
I believe him.
My monthly flow returns. I’m glad. It never came in the weeks of captivity. It’s light and sporadic, but it means I’m getting
stronger. Healthier.
Still, I have no supplies for dealing with it. I make do with some soft moss, and after my third request to stop so I can
relieve myself, Titus starts eyeing me suspiciously.
During our brief afternoon rest break, I screw up my courage to approach him.
“Titus?”
He crunches down on one of our last apples, regarding me warily.
“I need to bathe. Badly. We’re headed toward a lake. I’m sure you saw it when we were up on the ridge. I know you’re in some
kind of hurry, but if we stopped, just for one day, I could wash all our clothes. Even our blankets. Dry them out by the fire.
I could—”
“Fine,” he snaps.
I blink. “Really? I mean, thank you. Think about what you’d like me to wash for you.”
As we ride toward the lake, I strategize about how I’ll get everything clean with only one good arm. Maybe I’ll settle for
mostly clean. If nothing else, I’ll be able to scrounge up more moss. If Titus hunts tonight, I’ll ask if I can keep the skin
of whatever he kills.
We camp on a bluff overlooking crystal-blue water.
The entry into the water is rocky and steep, and I have to scout a bit before I find the perfect spot—a small gentle beach out of view of our camp, with the right consistency of gravel for scouring.
I dip my toes in to test the water. Freezing.
But I’m determined to make it happen, starting first thing in the morning. It will take all day.
When I return to camp, a cheery fire already licks at dry timber, and a pile of freshly plucked moss is sitting beside my
bedroll. I snap my head up, my face flaming.
“Found it while collecting firewood,” Titus says gruffly.
“Thank you,” I manage, half in gratitude, half in alarm. Nothing escapes his notice.
In the morning, Titus hands me a blanket, spare stockings, and a head scarf. Then, to my shock, he takes off his buckskin
coat, unties the laces of his linen tunic, and whips it over his head. He hands the tunic to me and quickly re-dons the coat.
But not before I glimpse the play of heavy muscle—rounded shoulders and muscled arms, a hard, strong chest, a taut waist.
For some reason, I thought the hair on his head would extend to the rest of him. He’s leaner than I thought. And even younger.
Maybe not much older than me.
I’m silent past the point of awkwardness.
“Bria?”
I can’t stop staring at the hollow of his throat, exposed now that he’s minus a shirt, and the silk cord hanging there. “Er . . .
this will take a while. I’m going to light another fire by the lake for drying. Yell if you need me, but please don’t . . .”
“I’ll let you have your privacy.”
I nod, swallowing, and turn away.
At the lake’s edge, I build a fire and bank it to burn hot and long. Then I shuck everything until I’m naked as the day I was born. I hiss as I enter the water.
I unravel my braids. They used to wrap neatly around my head, but they now resemble a bird’s nest. The tangles are awful.
When I have my hair as undone as I can make it, I take a deep breath and dunk, then grab a handful of sand and start scouring.
Strands of hair float away on the surface of the water. Dead hair from an almost-dead girl.
Next, I scour my body, scrubbing until it stings. My face feels odd, like it’s covered in the skin of a stranger. After a
few moments, it starts to slough away. I rub to get at the new skin underneath, until everything I touch feels smooth and
healthy.
Using the sling that’s been holding my injured shoulder, I wash gently between my legs and down my thighs. I wash every bit
of my body I can think of, using gravel and sand whenever I can take the pain of it.
I wash the sling itself, wring it out, and set it to dry by the fire. I test my injured shoulder by circling it around. It
hurts, but it no longer intrudes on my consciousness every waking moment.
Next, I tackle my shirt and pants, rubbing them against the rocks, then dipping to rinse, and repeating. My good arm tires
quickly, but I persist.
While those dry, I wash Titus’s clothing. They smell like him—cool and dry, pine and smoke, and a sharper scent that I now
recognize as the oil he uses on his bow.
It takes hours. By the time I’m done, the sun is high.
I’m suddenly overcome with exhaustion, but I am determined to be as clean as possible, so I find a thin pine branch, peel the bark, and use the end to scrape my teeth.
I then finger-comb my hair. One knot is so stubborn that I finally cut it off with my knife.
Only then do I allow myself to stretch out beside the fire. Mostly clean laundry is arrayed all around me. I close my eyes and let the sun bathe my skin.
I wake to dimming light and a growing chill. One last time, I splash between my legs. Then I don my almost-dry clothes, packing
the pants with more moss. I stomp out the fire, gather the laundry, and return to our campsite.
Titus startles upon seeing me. “Your hair is blond,” he says. “Really blond.”
I hand him his clothes. “What did you expect? Blue banshee silk?”
He shrugs.
My hair must have been even worse than I thought.
“Is this the best you could do?” he says, sniffing his tunic.
I glare at him. “One-armed and without soap, yes. If we’re still traveling together in a week or so, I will do better.”
“We won’t be.” He eyes me up and down. “You should eat more.”
I sigh. So much concern from someone determined to be rid of me. “Yes, probably. But I’m eating enough. Thank you.”
He grunts. Then . . . “I’m going to go wash up too. Put some tea on.” He grabs his bow and quiver.
And he strides away fast enough that my scathing “Yes, my lord” is lost on him. Tea it is. I did promise to make myself useful.
I only managed to salvage two hairpins from the disaster that was my hair, so for the next hour, I busy myself with trying
to braid and wrap my hair with nothing else. But it proves too much for my injured shoulder, and I must settle for a single
braid down my back.
An evening whippoorwill begins its otherworldly song. I wonder if the legends are true, if the whippoorwill senses the departing
souls of the dead. If so, I hope one sang for my sister.
Rustling pine boughs alert me to Titus’s return. He’s fully clothed, his red-brown hair damp and curling wildly, and he carries
a blacktail deer across his back.
I gape at him. So much venison will last us for days, though I can’t possibly dry it all in one night. Hopefully the meat
will stay fresh a while in this almost wintry air.
He drops the deer beside me. “We’ll stay one more day. Eat as much as you can. Dry the rest.”
“I . . . thank you. Is Jeridan the Hunter your patron god? He has certainly blessed—”
“He is not.”
He retrieves his arrow from the deer’s flank, cleans it, replaces it in his quiver, and then slips into his bedroll without
another word. He’s fast asleep in moments.
Buoyed by my earlier nap, I stay up late to skin and quarter the deer. I spit one haunch, shove another in the kettle, then
cut the rest of the meat into strips to dry by the fire. I’d slice off my braid in exchange for some salt, but we’ll have
to make do.
While the meat cooks, I scrape the hide.
I work it carefully, sharpening my knife every now and again.
I rub sand against it to soften it further, then I rig a rack of pine boughs and stretch the hide across.
I’ll let it cure all night. In the morning, I’ll crack open the deer’s skull and use the insides to tan it.
My eyes sting with a flash memory: My father, sitting at our private family table in the kitchen, tankard in hand. He’d just
traded two pickaxes for a raw bear pelt—barely fresh enough to be salvaged. “Every animal has just enough brains to tan its
own hide,” he said, then laughed like it was the funniest thing in the world.
Heat and tears well in my eyes. I miss him so much. I’m going to miss him forever.
Maybe it’s thinking about Da that does the trick, but finally I’m tired enough to sleep. My body aches from working all day,
but it’s a good, satisfying ache. I crawl into my bedroll, giving a quick thought to wild animals. With so much meat lying
around, we’ll be lucky if an ice cat doesn’t pay us a visit. But we’ve been traveling together for days now, and Titus has
always refused to set a watch.
I trust him. Somehow. He has a current of quiet, steady kindness running beneath his intimidating exterior—and an uncanny
way of knowing things. Maybe it’s his Gift.
I just don’t trust ice cats.